An unlikely pair
by Frankenstein007
Summary: A woman who do not want to be saved and the man who saved her. On the sidelines, poor Kusakabe was taking the brute of their misdirected anger.


**Don't push your luck**

* * *

 _'Both have made our choices, it always has and always will be; blood ties over duty.'_

She was found leaning against the trunk of an old willow tree. With her eyes closed, her ears listened to the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew passed her, her body entirely hidden by the shadows.

For a moment, she allowed herself to relish the serenity of the forest. It brought her back to the times she spent running around in the garden, surrounded by tall apple trees late in the afternoons. It was one her most treasured memories as a child before reality knocked on her door.

A crisp snapped off a twig broke her out of reverie, making her opened her eyes to the darkness ahead. He took his time to approach her, undoing the illusion when he stepped out of the shadows. Dressed in a form-fitting black suit, her assassin stopped a few meters from her. Under the moonlight, his beautiful blue eyes were riddled with guilt. He looked like he was about to cry.

She smiled at him sadly. He had a handgun strapped to his side. It was a birthday present she brought for him when they were young.

Gathering herself, she trekked towards him. He was a whole head taller than her now, she had to tiptoe to smack him hard in the head. In between his groans, she chided him, "Stop acting pathetic when you finally beat me in Cops and Robbers. You are a man, so act like one. Jeez."

She watched him gritted his teeth and averted his gaze. He was avoiding her again and was getting better and better at it these days. Huffing out loud, she continued with her ranting.

"How long are you going to sulk there? It's not like I have crashed your Elizabeth again." She spared him a glance. He was still silent.

"Oh, come on! It's not like it was my fault, it was snowing that day when the car skidded down the hill and hit the tree. There wasn't much damaged, only the bumper fell off! I said I was sorry, I have tried to get it back to you-"

She was cut off by the sudden grab of her shoulders.

"If you knew, why did you come? If you knew, why did you not expose me and mother in front of everyone?" He raged. It was not the time to joke around. He did not understand. He cannot read her. "Why…"

 _Why didn't you kill me?_

His eyes lingered on one of the rings on her fingers.

"Because I hadn't felt the need to."

"W-What are you saying…"

His body turned stiff when she drew him into a hug. "It wasn't mine, to begin with. I am only returning it back to the true bearer. Don't try to argue your way out, I saw you leaving your right side open on purpose during that fight years ago. I have never bested you in physical combat. Do you think I am that stupid?"

Her sleeve was starting to get soaked in his tears and snot. He was such a cry baby, trembling like a leaf in her arms. Removing the Sky ring, she placed it on his palm. "So, it's only right that I give it back. After all, you caught the robber red-handed."

Flashes of lightning struck the slumbering city not too far away; a storm is coming.

"Besides," She sighed, staring up into the starless sky. "Who will ever have the heart to hurt their cute baby brother?"

 _Today, she decided, is not a bad day to die._

* * *

The real-time fluctuations of her heartbeat on the electrocardiogram were only a physical representation of how cruel the world can be. After days of drifting in and out of consciousness, she regained some level of lucidness to realize she was in fact very much alive. The doctors had succeeded in dragging her back to the land of the living after performing an intensive sixteen-hour surgery.

That dull ache in her chest now was just an additional bonus, a congratulatory pat on the back for surviving the ordeal. They had somehow managed to salvage her shitty life that night when she was bleeding out from the insides. She spent two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit, hooked to a ventilator while the doctors waited for a god's miracle.

The gods did not disappoint.

She was now the number one hot topic to gossip about in the cafeteria. The medical staff had given her the name sleeping beauty ever since she stormed the ER coming in in the arms of a handsome prince charming. She had sparked their curiosity both as a person and from a medical standpoint.

"Unless she's kept under suspended animation, there's no telling how she's still alive. You normally have a six-minute buffer time before a person dies from a heart wound. And yet, she was found at the edge of the Namimori forest twenty minutes away from here by car."

She overheard one intern say.

But rather than discussing ambiguous medical theories, she was more skeptical about the person who carried her to the ER that night. They said he was the town's enforcer, the one in charge of maintaining the peace of the city.

She laughed.

To her, it seemed more likely that he had suffered from an eighth-grade syndrome instead. He was free to play superhero but she was no damsel in distress. She did not ask to be saved by Mr. Batman, call her ungrateful but he can take his altruism and feed it to the dogs for all she cared.

It would not long before her doctors gave the nurses the green light to move her to another ward in the cardiology department. Even without telling her, she could already feel her strength returning. Raising her hand to cup the gas mask, she listened to the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. It was lulling her back to sleep.

No one was waiting for her back at home anymore.

She had forsaken it.

And as she drew her final breath, her hand grasped the mask about to rip it off-

"What are you doing?"

She turned to the source of the voice. The door to her ward was wide opened. She was too distracted to sense there was someone standing by the door. He was not looking at her but at the hand gripping the gas mask. He had an air of nonchalance surrounding him, like he wanted to be anywhere but right here.

She quirked her brows. The mask on her face prevented her from speaking.

He did not wait for her reply. She watched him strolled up to her, his movements fluid and smooth. He had positioned himself next to her bedside with his back facing the door. This man, she realized, was not your normal salary man dressed in a suit.

Just as he walked in, his eyes had taken a brief scan of the room, pausing a second or two at the windows and the bathroom. It was a very typical behavior for someone used to be constantly under attack.

He was being vigilant and it made her wary.

The gears in her head started turning when he roughly flung her hand away. There was no mistaking it, the man beside her was no regular civilian. Though she only caught a glimpsed of it, she recognized the emblem on his purple ring.

Her eyes widened as he leaned down on her, the ends of his black hair tickling her forehead. Their faces inches apart.

"If you want to die," He coerced. "Do it outside of Namimori."

She had no concrete evidence to back it up but it was at that moment, she had a feeling that the man before her was Bruce Wayne. He was the bastard who couldn't mind his own business and rescued her from an unfortunate death. The Batman of Namimori.

* * *

 **All the medical facts are from online. So please take it with a pinch of salt.**

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